Robocop is better than was expected out of a
slick, PG-13 rated corporate monstrosity of a remake -- but just
barely. For ten minutes or so, the movie has you fooled into believing
that maybe they'll actually be able to pull the whole thing off. How,
in 2014, can viewers (including your humble critic) still be so easily
tricked?

The opening to this film is fucking incredible. It makes a statement
about U.S. military overreach that you'd usually expect to see from
someone like Noam Chomsky or Jeremey Scahill -- not a 100 million
dollar "blockbuster by the numbers" film by comitte. The movie opens
with Samuel L. Jackson -- playing a Bill O'Reilly type -- showing us
how well the citizens of Tehran have received the robotic
overlords sent their way by a gigantic U.S. military contractor
(Omnicorp). The Tehranis are portrayed as looking terrified during an
obvious play on New York City's "Stop-and-Frisk" program; but still the
U.S. media presents them as loving their gigantic mechanical "freedom
fighters." As the Fox News' like pro-military media cheerleads and
captures the "happy Tehranis" on camera, a few Tehranis take the
initiative and decide they must die while the American media is
recording, by blowing the hell out of a big robot. When they succeed in
their mission, the feed is cut and Sam Jackson as O'Reilly Guy talks of
how great it would be if we had the same robots guarding U.S. streets
and asks what could be more important than the safety of Americans. In
reality, Sam Jackson's O'Reilly guy is doing what the real life
O'Reilly does on a regular basis -- trying to make more money for
private military contractors by scaring Americans into trading their
freedoms for a false sense of security -- the whole while making
billions for Ominicorp. If the entire movie kept up the momentum of the
opening 10 minutes and kept the topics as deep, current and
controversial as they are at the start, it could have rivaled the
original Robocop. It could
have possibly bettered it — which would have been a rare
achievement for a remake.

Sadly, after the opening, we enter the watered-down PG-13 realm we
expected ever since the movie was announced. Being a PG-13 is a HUGE
strike against the movie and it would have done better at the box
office with an R rating (where the studios get their, “PG-13
performs better” mentality I don’t know — but
certainly not anywhere reality based) and certainly would have reached
loftier goals artistically. To its credit, Robocop 2014 handles the rating it
was damned with better than most. Instead of seeing a bunch of people
blown away with NO blood, we are shown gunfights in the dark —
lit up only by the gunfire itself — or with night vision on or
against robots that don’t bleed, which helps make the PG-13 rated
film feel a little more brutal than the usual PG-13 Happy Meal
hackjob.

Should action and sci-fi movies have to settle? Anyone with any
sense would say, "no." I watched the original a week ago in preparation
for the remake and was, yet again, shocked by its extreme violence (the
film originally received an "X" rating) and bold predictions of the
near future. The movie dared go places that this one — restrained
by its tepid PG-13 rating — couldn't even dare to consider
approaching. And, ironically, the original's predictions of future
Detroit way back in 1987 shows a more accurate Detroit than the
one portrayed in the remake. A Detroit -- in the remake -- that looks
more like Canada. Because, as with most movies these days, Canada's
lofty tax breaks mean the billion dollar studios throw accuracy out the
window and we see Canada as a stand in for just about every major
U.S. city in just about every "Hollywood" movie, including Robocop 2014's crisp, clean and
shiney looking "Detroit". Hey! MGM and Columbia! Detroit could use
the money! If you set your movie in that city, film your movie in
that city!

Poor Joel Kinnaman -- he became known as Detective Holder on The Killing, a show set in Seattle
that was filmed in Canada. And now he makes his major film debut in Robocop, a movie set in Detroit
that was filmed in Canada. He's a Swede and at this point probably has
the impression that every city in the U.S. is super clean, boring and
located in Canada. That's gotta confuse a guy. Which may explain his
performance in Robocop, which
is super clean, boring and ... well ... Canadian. The rest of the cast
doesn't fare much better. Gary Oldman, playing a sort of Dr.
Frankenstein, looks and acts like an elderly woman. Abbie
Cornish, as Robocop's wife, essentially plays a concerned Barbie Doll.
Jackie Earle Haley tries to pull off all sorts of nasty as an evil
thug, but the only memorable thing about his perfomance is he's
the one granted the delivery of the infamous, "I'd buy THAT for a
dollar" line from the original film (albeit in slightly varied form).
It's fun seeing Samuel L. Jackson ham shit up, but seeing Samuel
L.
Jackson hamming shit up is becoming par for the course -- no matter the
film, he seems to think he's in a 70's grindhouse picture. One must
wonder if he even remembers how to actually give a performance, rather
than create yet another charicture. Michael Keaton as Ominicorp's CEO
is the only one who puts in an interesting performance. Maybe that's
just because he's pissed Robocop stole his Batman suit.

Speaking of Batman,
another HUGE setback for the film was the "modern" Dark Knight type color correction.
You know the kind? Where everything looks sort of orange, chrome and
muted? Like color film has just been invented and is yet to be
perfected? It sort of worked in Dark
Knight. That shouldn’t have to mean it will work in every
sci-fi or action film made since Dark
Knight — to the contrary, actually (seriously —
don’t the money men pay attention?). This muted color timing
really brought the movie down, just like it has brought down nearly all
modern action movies (compare the box office of Robocop to the hyper-saturated Lego Movie). Thanks to everything
feeling so cold due to the horribly cold color correction, you never
really feel much emotional connection toward the characters.

Overall Robocop was better than I expected it to be, but I didn't
expect it to be much more than crap. It's worse than the original
in every possible way excluding its excellent opening minutes. I feel
that most of what was wrong with the movie could have easily been fixed
if the suits controlling the purse strings would get rid of their
magical thinking about what does and doesn’t help a film at the
box office. If they want the magic solution to making a hit movie I'll
give it to them for free: Make the fucking movie good. The big bucks
will follow.